Business

Cooking oil catching the eye

Released at: 09:44, 29/06/2015

Many corporations have joined the cooking oil industry and it can be expected that there will be more to follow.

by Son Ho

As the market scale of the cooking oil industry has reached $1.37 billion annually the industry is now attracting a lot of corporations from different fields such as confectionery, real estate, and supermarkets.

On June 26 the Kinh Do Corporation held its annual general meeting, in which it announced a change of name to Kido and also signed a memorandum of understanding with Felda Global Ventures (FGV) - one of the largest corporations in cultivating and producing palm oil. The confectioner is now planning to build a joint venture in the cooking oil industry.

The Big C supermarket chain’s cooking oil products are displayed next to those of other brands but are about 50 per cent cheaper. This is also the case at the Coop Mart supermarket chain.

At the end of 2014 the entry of the Sao Mai Group, a corporation in real estate and seafood, was also indicative of the development in the market, with its “Ranee” product. A representative from the Sao Mai Group said that even though they started later than others they were still determined, because no other corporation was producing cooking oil from pangasius oil. “The Sao Mai Group is now focusing on marketing and pushing exports to Singapore, Malaysia and China,” the representative said.

In recent years the growth of companies in the cooking oil industry has always been around 20 to 30 per cent. Vegetable oil now accounts for 29 per cent of the consumer food industry, according to Nielsen, which shows that this is still a rich field to become involved in.

There are currently nearly 40 corporations producing and selling cooking oil, according to figures from the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Vegetable oil accounts for up to 70 per cent of the industry, mainly palm oil products, while soybean oil represents 23 per cent of the market and other types of cooking oil the remaining 7 per cent.